


Gone

by Momma_Loki



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-08 00:30:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Momma_Loki/pseuds/Momma_Loki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki could hear it - Dauði singing so sweetly beneath his brother's words as Thor so feverishly tried to reassure him that everything would be fine, everything would be as it were before. But Loki needed no reassuring, for he felt no fear in the sullen face of that one-eyed dýr. No, little Loki knew in his bones that things were different this time around; he forsook his freedom long ago, and now he knew nothing but peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired entirely by "Gone" by Ioanna Gika. Listen, while reading along, for maximum feels. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhyC0k6j3Rg)
> 
> Basically a story of what could possibly happen, once Loki is taken back to Asgard.

Thor sits. His heart is trapped and heavy in a serpentine grip inside his throat. His hands hide his face for all the shame and betrayal that runs through him.

Like mere cattle to slátra, he has lead his brother so willingly into his father's maw. The All-father would have Loki's thread betwixt his teeth, like a hound with the taste of blood.

They had until morn.

Dauði would come for what was His, at first light, and the two not-brothers would be hapless.

“He is merely making a show of things, brother,” Thor started after some moments of quiet.

Loki could hardly find it in him to argue bloodlines any longer, after so many, many years, so Thor continued – speaking more to himself than any other. “He will do no worse than before, you will see.”

Loki could hear another voice in Thor's words, singing ever sweetly to him behind his brother's reassurance. Dauði was speaking to him, and little Loki found peace in the words.

“Loki?”

Thor's voice pulled him back and Loki realized he could not remember the last time he had spoken. So Loki smiled, instead, and it was a kind thing. Thor felt both Peace and Fear scramble for purchase on his heart. How long had it been since his brother had worn such a face?

Eyes, greener than the color itself, looked unto him and all his agony was leached away.

 

“ _Dark the stars and dark the moon._

_Hush the night and the morning loon._

_Tell the horses and beat on your drum._

_Gone their master, gone their son._ ”

 

The words taste bitter on Loki's tongue and there is no grace in their start. His voice shivers and fails under misuse. But it is a beautiful sound, Thor thinks.

The brothers know this song well. Mayhap better than one should.

Frigga sang it, at the start, to lull her children when Grief was too near. For Dauði was not a creature who came in the quiet of the night, but more at the end of an enemies blade in the chaos of war. They had lost many over the course of their childhood, because war keeps no prisoners and cares not for age. So Frigga taught them to sing - for their brothers, their friends and their loved ones.

The song laments farewell to those who Memory keeps close, and only shares in dreams.

Thor chokes on his own breath and the tears scald like liquid fire. His heart carries the weight of Mjolnir and he finds he has naught the worth to lift it. The dirge coming from his brother's thin lips bodes ill with the first sight of the dawn, slithering in like snakes from the tall grass.

The crowned prince feels robbed and sets to braiding Loki's hair with unsteady, yet efficient hands. He has done this for as long as his memory will allow.

Every ceremony in Asgard calls for braids – the bigger the celebration, the more numerous the braids – and as a child, Loki became a squawking, scratching mess for any who tried to tamper with his raven locks. Even his own mother.

Thor braved his feral brother and took the abuse to his youthful arms with little fuss. The braids were far from regal, but they were all the Trickster's squirming would allow. From then on, little Thor was the only who would dare to near his brother when time called for braids to be set.

As adolescence found them, the fight left Loki. He simply came to sit himself in front of his elder brother without a word, before every ceremony.

Thor eventually questioned why his brother would only allow the Thunderer to garnish his hair, but he was met with only silence. That was centuries ago, and not much changed in-between now and then.

Loki finds that his lips have curled into a private smile around his song, of their own accord at the gentle workings of his brother's hands.

 

“ _Dark the oceans, dark the sky._

_Hush the whales and the ocean tide._

_Tell the salt marsh and beat on your drum._

_Gone their master, gone their son._ ”

 

Loki's eyes find Thor as he gives the hangman his neck, and the noose is slipped around his shoulders. No life exists in the jade sea any longer, only stars breathing their last light unto the vast and empty void.

A storm attempts to drown them all, and it carries the stench of Thor's sorrow. Loki will remember this smell. The Trickster gives the ground a smile and his tears, as Dauði comes for him at the snapping of his own neck.

There is no warning for what comes, save the roaring of the great tide, and Thor cannot hear the howling of his own sorrow above all the screams.

Thor finds himself on Midgard, after Asgard's moon shows her face three times. The mortals still have anger in their hearts, but there is pity also, so they gather close to the God of Thunder with drinks and kind words as he laments.

 

“ _Dark to light and light to dark._

_Three black carriages, three white carts._

_What brings us together is what pulls us apart._

_Gone our brother, gone our heart_.”

 

There is a difference in Thor, and he finds that his heart feels crooked. The mortals listen close and can hear Loki sing beneath his brother. But Dauði protects His own, and there is no shape to the voice.

 

“ _Hush the whales and the ocean tide._

_Tell the salt marsh and beat on your drum._

_Gone their master, gone their son._ ”


End file.
